Submarine Warriors: The Enemy Beneath (3 page)

“Mes__ge recei__d,” replied the XO. “Th__ ca_’t be hap___ing!”

“Weaps, quickly initiate our self-destruct procedure before it’s too late,” the Captain ordered.

“Aye-aye sir,” responded the Weapons officer.

Back onboard the USS Alaska, the XO sprang into action. “Helm, make your course zero-nine-zero. All ahead flank cavitate! I don’t care how much noise we make.”

“Making my course zero-nine-zero, all ahead flank cavitate helm, aye.”

Back in Maneuvering, the nuclear engineer spun the wheel as fast as he could to bring the Alaska to flank (top) speed without regard for the extra noise created by air bubbles from accelerating too fast.

The USS Alaska quickly departed the scene to avoid the inevitable shock waves that would come from a self-destructing sub.

Back on the Omaha Beach, Captain Connery spoke softly to his team. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got thirty seconds to compose a digital family gram and get it to the Radioman for transmission.”

Everyone onboard the Omaha Beach turned to their computer screens and quickly typed farewell messages to their wives and children back home.

Quiet sniffling and even some whimpering could be heard in the control room.

“Did you father ever have to face death like this?” the Weaps asked the Captain.

“Admiral Connery was just a kid when he served on World War II submarines.” The Captain looked him in the eyes. “But he faced death every day.”

The Captain and the Weapons Officer removed special keys from around their necks and inserted them into the main control panel. They both turned their keys to the right and the Captain poised his finger over a large red button.

Petty Officer Grant quickly transmitted the digital family grams to the crew’s loved ones. An electronic message seemed to be an expedient, yet horribly impersonal way to convey the death of a service member. Those unwelcome knocks on the door, so feared by the spouses of America’s fallen heroes throughout many wars, will arrive long after the bad news is already known this time.

“None of you deserves this ending,” uttered the Captain. “I’m so sorry…”

Captain Connery had trained his entire career to push a button that would rain down nuclear missiles on America’s enemies. Now he was pushing a different kind of button that would extinguish his own life and the lives of his crew. “What am I doing?” he thought to himself. His hands shook violently as he depressed the glowing red button with his index finger.

An eternity seemed to pass on the Omaha Beach as crew members sat with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears. Slowly, one by one, each member of the away team opened their eyes to see if they’d made it to Heaven.

The sub had gone dark and there was no explosion.

“What happened?” asked the Weapons Officer.

“It appears that we’ve lost power,” the Captain replied. “Without power, the electromechanical features of the self-destruct system can’t set off the charges.”

“Yes!” yelled out Petty Officer Timbers as he high-fived Petty Officer Love.

Sighs of relief and laughing began to spread around the room.

With a little more conviction than before, Captain Connery pushed the self-destruct button several more times, to no avail.

“Let’s not get carried away with that button pushing, Skipper,” said the Pilot. “You might accidentally get that thing to work.”

“Being alive feels pretty good.” A relieved Petty Officer Grant spoke out in the darkness. “I’m sure whatever happens next couldn’t possibly be as bad as being blown to bits.”

Just as the Omaha Beach was about to land on the ocean floor, the strange radar dish reversed its magnetic beam and pushed the DSRV toward the pyramid. The sub eventually settled down next to the glowing structure with its occupants shrouded in darkness, due to the electrical disruption from the magnetic beam.

An accordion-like tube extended from near the tip of the crystal pyramid. It reached out to the Omaha Beach, arched over the top, and sealed itself to the upper escape hatch. The sailors onboard watched in disbelief as the hatch slowly opened and an infrared light washed into the main compartment. Several humanoid creatures dropped through the open hatch and landed on the main deck with a thud.

They looked like astronauts in black, spacesuit-like outfits and helmets. Peering out at the sailors from behind the curved, glass face-shields were ultraviolet, glowing eyes.

This turn of events quickly put the crew of the Omaha Beach on the defensive and everyone took slow steps backwards away from the intruders.

“This was definitely not in the Navy recruiting brochure when I signed up.” A nervous Petty Officer Love tried to make light of this new situation.

“I think we just made first contact with an Alien civilization,” added the Weaps.

“If you want to live, you’ll come with us and you won’t try anything stupid,” one of the strange humanoids announced to the group.

“I guess they don’t come in peace,” uttered Petty Officer Grant.

Without warning, the Pilot pushed through the group towards the Aliens. “I don’t take orders from freaks like you!” shouted the Pilot. He hit one of the creatures over the head with a fire extinguisher, knocking it to the ground.

Without skipping a beat, one of the other humanoid creatures reached out and clutched the Pilot’s face with its hand. Intense heat shot out from its fingers and seared his skin.

The Pilot screamed in anguish as his face began to burn.

“You’re killing him!” the Captain shouted. “Stop, and we’ll do what you ask.”

“It’s a little late for that, Overworlder.” The creature released his grip and the Pilot’s lifeless body collapsed to the deck. “Consider yourself warned. Now get moving!”

“Oh my God, he’s dead.” The Weaps picked up the smoldering remains of the Pilot. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“Oh, you will,” remarked one of the creatures with an outstretched hand.

The Weaps suddenly felt an invisible burning sensation, causing him to drop the Pilot on the deck. “Okay, okay, I’ll do what you want,” the sunburned Weaps muttered to the creatures.

The terrified crew climbed out of the upper hatch, and the creatures forced the sailors through a translucent tube into an opening in the pyramid. After walking down a short corridor, the sailors were pushed into an airtight compartment and sealed inside. Everywhere they looked, they saw the red glow of infrared lights being used for illumination. With the crewmembers locked in their new underwater prison, the humanoids removed their suits and helmets to reveal their bald heads, hairless bodies and translucent skin.

“You’re being quarantined in this containment cell to ensure we don’t become infected by your Overworlder diseases,” barked one of the humanoid creatures.

“Who are you and what right do you have to capture our sub and hold us prisoner?” Captain Connery shouted.

“We have every right, Overworlder scum!” A new creature with an ancient Egyptian headdress emerged from the shadows. “Did you think you were the only intelligent life on this planet? Did you really think you had this whole place to yourselves? We’ve lived under the continents and the ocean floor for centuries. We were once like you until our ancestors were pulled underground several millennia ago when the waves of the Red Sea crashed in all around them. They believed they had descended into Hell. But our surviving forefathers learned how to thrive deep beneath the Earth’s surface. Our advanced race adapted to this subterranean world in a way that none of the Earth’s other primitive cultures ever could. Over the centuries, our bodies and eyes evolved to better suit our underground surroundings. Constant exposure to radioactive elements has mutated our genes so that we have the power to project heat from our hands. Today, we are one billion strong and we control the world beneath your feet!”

“Why show yourselves now, and why did you sink the cruise ship and kill all those innocent people?” Captain Connery retorted.

“That’s simple,” replied the Underworlder. “Your technology is becoming advanced enough to threaten our civilization. You may not realize it, but we’ve been closely monitoring you for the last hundred years. We’ve tapped your undersea phone lines and fiber optic cables. We’ve watched you create great societies and technologies, only to destroy them with greater and greater ferocity. I only wish your barbaric cultures would have wiped each other out by now. Like some kind of runaway virus, you keep multiplying and consuming all the Earth’s resources. Your world and ours are linked by a few miles of rock and ocean and we want those resources for ourselves. To that end, we’ve decided that your civilization has forfeited its right to exist on this planet. Consider the dead Overworlders on the cruise ship your first casualties in this new war. But for now, I have something different in mind for you.”

“Commander, begin the wrapping process on the prisoners!”

Chapter 2 > The Cover Up

Arlington, Virginia

It was a crisp, early autumn morning at the Arlington National Cemetery. A procession of black limousines and Suburbans made their way through the main entrance and parked. Members of the Secret Service jumped out of their SUVs and ran ahead to the cemetery grounds to secure the area. Following them up the hill was a long line of family members, friends, a Navy Chaplain, the Secretary of the Navy, and the President of the United States. They were all there to say goodbye to the crew of the USS Omaha Beach.

The group finally congregated around six headstones engraved with gold and silver dolphins, the universal symbols for submarine officers and enlisted men everywhere. The headstones included the names Captain Robert Connery, Lt. Samuel Wyatt, Petty Officer Aaron Timbers, Petty Officer Richard Grant, Petty Officer Tom Love, and Warrant Officer Paul Thompson. Most ominously, engraved beneath each of the names was the word Lost. The gravesites contained no bodies of the dead to mourn on this depressing day.

Caroline’s grandfather, retired Admiral Connery, performed a quick scan around Arlington Cemetery and noticed many headstones with dolphins and the word Lost engraved on them. “Most of these are from World War II sinkings by Japanese submarines and German U-boats,” he thought to himself. “Probably a few covered-up, cold war casualties, as well.”

The sounds of weeping and sniffling could be heard as the Navy Chaplain delivered his sermon. “Dear Lord, lift up these brave patriots and defenders of America so that they may experience your glory and serve you in Heaven.”

“The Chaplain doesn’t know, does he?” the President whispered to the Naval Secretary.

“No, he doesn’t know anything,” the SECNAV replied.

The Chaplain went on for a few more minutes and then closed his Bible to conclude his sermon.

“I can’t believe Daddy’s gone,” Caroline cried. “I was just talking to him last week. He said he wasn’t going to leave me anymore.”

By now, Caroline, Nick, Chrissie, Annie and Mike were sobbing uncontrollably.

The SECNAV walked over and put his arm around Caroline. “Your father was one of the greatest submarine Skippers in the Navy, and a good friend.”

“Don’t say the word WAS,” Caroline snapped and pushed him away. “The Navy took him from me and now I’ll never see him again.”

The President looked across at the children. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. You should all be proud of your fathers. They were very brave and cared deeply about you and their country. It’s regretful that they would leave us so soon due to a mishap on a research vessel. It truly tears me apart.”

Standing next to Caroline, Admiral Connery glared at the President with eyes reflecting utter disbelief.

“Your fathers, husbands, and sons took time away from their lives as undersea warriors to conduct important scientific experiments designed to remove harmful CO2 from the air we breathe,” the President continued. “This accident was unforeseeable, and the flooding that occurred pulled the research sub to depths far beyond our reach. We may not be able to find them, but you’ll always be able to visit this place to remember them.”

At that moment, sailors in dress-white uniforms aimed their rifles in the air and gave the fallen submariners a twenty-one gun salute.

Afterwards, the sailors presented each widow with an American flag, neatly and precisely folded into a triangle. This pushed the women over the edge into even greater levels of despair.

The children placed wreaths on the empty tombs and spent a few more moments at the gravesites.

“I paused our Halo game, Dad,” Nick spoke aloud. “It will be your turn to play Master Chief when you get back.” He then placed an Xbox game controller on the Weapons Officer’s gravestone.

Eventually, the solemn group slowly made their way back to their cars and headed to Dulles Airport for the trip home to the Pacific Northwest.

The White House

“You think they believed it?” asked the SECNAV.

“They don’t suspect a thing,” replied the President. “Don’t think for a second that I take pleasure in being involved in something like this. Creating cover stories for bizarre occurrences was not in the job description when I ran for President. I’d hate to think that my own government would’ve done something like this to me if I’d died when serving in Afghanistan.”